Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney was an American actor and entertainer whose 90-year career across film, TV, theater, and vaudeville (the longest career in Hollywood history) produced over 300 feature-film appearances and produced one of the defining American 20th-century child-actor and adult-actor careers — particularly his 1937–1947 lead role as Andy Hardy across the 16-film MGM Andy Hardy series. He was born Joseph Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920, in Brooklyn, New York City. His father Joe Yule Sr. was a Scottish-American vaudeville comedian and his mother Nellie W. Carter was an American chorus girl. The 1923 separation of his parents launched his 1923 vaudeville-circuit career at age 17 months.

His 1926 first feature-film appearance in Not to Be Trusted — at age six — launched his late-1920s and 1930s American film career. His 1932 contract signing with MGM Studios under Louis B. Mayer — at age 12 — and his subsequent 1937 lead-role debut as Andy Hardy in A Family Affair launched his 1937–1947 lead role as Andy Hardy across the 16-film MGM Andy Hardy series.

The 1937–1947 16-film MGM Andy Hardy series — set in the fictional Carvel, Illinois small town — produced his late-1930s and 1940s American teen-film public profile. The 1939 box-office year produced his ranking as the No. 1 box-office star (above Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Bette Davis) — making him the first child actor ever to top the annual American box-office rankings. His 1940 Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Babes in Arms (opposite Judy Garland) and his 1944 Best Actor Academy Award nomination for The Human Comedy produced his late-1930s and early-1940s American film commercial peak.

His U.S. Army service across 1944–1946 — including his post-D-Day Europe Theater service entertaining troops — shaped his post-WWII later biographical narrative. His 1980 lead role in the Broadway musical Sugar Babies (alongside Ann Miller) launched his 1980s American Broadway-and-TV public profile. His 1981 lead role in NBC's Bill (a TV-movie biographical drama based on the life of intellectually-disabled adult-survivor Bill Sackter) won him the 1982 Best Actor Emmy Award. He died on April 6, 2014, at age 93, in Studio City, Los Angeles.

His name Mickey began as a stage name (the diminutive of Michael, adopted in 1932 to coincide with his MGM contract). Mickey was a popular American boys' name through the mid-20th century.